


Blindness

by KingSubmar



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Emperor Kylo Ren, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Force-Sensitive Finn, I lowkey hate kylo, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-06-02 21:36:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6583456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingSubmar/pseuds/KingSubmar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The force, in all its cruelty, bound Finn to a demon. But he doesn't believe in fate.</p><p>Previously 'My Own Soul'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Marked Trooper

 

“I don't know your name”

“Finn” he says immediately, like he's had it his entire life. And it causes pain to bloom in his chest, as he remembers the incredible man who gave it to him. “What’s yours?”

“I'm Rey” she replies, and looks at him like he's someone to look up to, something to aspire to. If he wasn't smitten before, he sure as hell is now.

 

But Finn stands to leave anyway because Maz is right, he is running, and for a damn good reason. When he goes to offer Han his blaster back, the sleeves on his left arm pull back just enough to let the tips of two black lines peak out. It's enough for Han, because he grabs Finn’s wrist and exposes the whole mark. Han’s mouth falls open in shock, and Finn? He looks absolutely horrified. They both know who he shares that mark with. Finn drops the blaster and snatches his arm back, before hurrying from the table without another word.

“Finn!” Rey calls, and gets up to go after him. Han stops her with a firm hand on her shoulder.

“I got it.”

He makes his way expertly through the crowd, quickly and without offending anybody. Finn isn’t having as much luck, and is stuck awkwardly trying to pass a very wide creature, who moved slower than a dead bantha.

Han gets a hold on him and spins the boy around. He looks scared, and on the verge of being on the verge of tears.

Han gives him a small sad smile, trying to make his gruff face seem more welcoming, “I’m sorry about that. It wasn’t right, I didn’t have your permission. I just never thought I’d get to meet you,” he seems enraptured with Finn, taking in every detail. “You defected from the order, didn’t you?”

Finn gives a nod.

Han motions to the other’s inner wrist, “because of that?” He asks carefully.

“That's part of it” he mumbles.

And it was, a huge part of it.

* * *

 

FN-2187 entered the dark quarters he had been summoned to. The door slid shut behind him, ridding it of the only light source and leaving him blind.

He briefly considers the possibility that this is some sort of mean spirited joke, before a very distinct and very familiar voice cuts through the darkness, “FN-2187, welcome.”

The trooper’s eyes widen comically behind his helmet, and his heart jumps into his throat, as he stands there frozen, certain whatever happens next is going to be painful.

“I'm not going to harm you.”

Then the lights turn up just a little, enough for ’87 to see that he's only a few feet from Kylo already. The room is small and clearly unclaimed, there is only space for a bed, that is bare, and a chest of drawers that are open and empty.

Kylo is lounging on the floor, with his back leaning against the foot of the bed; one of his legs is out in front of him, and the other folded up to his chest. It screams of nonchalance, a ploy perhaps to get ’87 relaxed and to drop his guard, not that having his guard up would make any difference now.

Troopers were weary of him, but Kylo’s more aggressive attentions were more focused on the officers and not the one’s merely following their orders. And even when troopers were at fault, he criticized the training program, of which they were a product of. It could be said that he didn’t see them as beings autonomous enough to be responsible for their actions, no one did. They weren’t punished, they were sent to reconditioning, to fix any unwanted functionality like a droid.

“You…requested me, sir?”

Kylo stays silent for a long time before answering.

“I couldn’t deny myself any longer, this feeling when we’re…when we’re like this, together, and occupying each other’s mind-space. It kept calling to me. You will come to know it, in time.”

’87 doesn’t know what he’s talking about but he knows better than to ask, so he stays put and doesn’t say a word.

“Sit,” Kylo orders.

He obeys happily, relieved when he’s told what to do, and lowers himself onto the floor, across from the other man.

“I’ll find some use for you” Kylo continues, “you ease my pain but my pain makes me strong, I need you to make me strong else I won’t need you. I can’t have what I don’t need.” He seems truly upset about this, his hands are clenched into fists, and he looks so tense he might snap. Then he does.

Kylo climbs towards him slowly, until he is on his knees before the trooper, leaning forward so that their masks are almost touching. They stay like that, silent and unmoving for so long that ’87 thinks Kylo is in some sort of trance, and the knight is too still to be breathing. But when ’87 scoots back just a little, the black clad creature follows immediately, maintaining their distance and causing a vile, eerie feeling to climb up his spine because the man is just sitting there, leering at him.

It’s in the top 10 most uncomfortable experiences of his life, and he’s had a hard life. Forty-five minutes later, Kylo finally gets up without a word and walks out, which ’87 takes as a dismissal and clears the room soon after.

He’s called back many times, seemingly at random, sometimes they met twice a day, and other times he didn’t see Kylo for weeks. And he didn’t care about what ’87 was doing, he’s been summoned during his work shifts, and hours into his rest cycle.

He doesn’t _hate_ it but he doesn’t like it either. He accepts it. Kylo is a hard man to be comfortable around, he mutters a lot, and stares at ’87 even more. He’s powerful and he’s no qualms about showing it, but he’s soft with ’87, as in he’s not as completely brutal as he could be. The cadence of his helmet doesn’t seem as rough when he’s speaking to him, and his movements are slower as not to startle, and not accidently maim.

His superiors haven’t mentioned his absences at all, though he catches Phasma observing him more than usual. His fellow troopers have noticed, and believe it to be some sort of top-secret, special training, and use it as a reason to further alienate him. Its fine, as long as they don’t know the real reason, especially after the first time Kylo gets…intimate with him.

***

“Strip,” he orders.

And okay, Finn knew this could happen. It’s what usually happened when troopers were called into ranking officers rooms. So he follows the order as calmly as he can because this was normal, it was expected.

Kylo’s seated at the end of the bed and calls ’87 to him. He goes and stands naked between the knight’s massive legs and looks down at his hands as he awaits instruction.

“Where’s you mark? Your soul mark?”

’87 gives him an odd look, “Stormtroopers don’t have soulmates,” he says. Everyone knew that.

Kylo grabs his left arm, and runs his thumb softly over his inner wrist, “false skin” he murmurs, but ’87 hears him, “They cut it off of you.”

‘87’s heart beats faster when he realizes what Kylo said, and what those words might mean. But he doesn’t let himself be distracted, trying to be the good soldier, even in this. Hands come to grip his hips and Kylo looks up into his face for a while; even though his eyes are hidden, ’87 cannot bring himself to look into his mask. It was grotesque to him, the feeling he got when he looked at it made his stomach churn.

He lets himself be arranged onto the bare mattress, on his hands and knees and facing the dull grey wall. He’s never done this before; he wants to tell Kylo he’s never done this before but he doesn’t think it will make much of a difference.

There’s very little fanfare; he hears some shuffling from behind him, and then Kylo’s pushing something very large and slick against him, then into him. It feels like he’s being split in two, it’s a slow slide but Kylo doesn’t stop until he’s all the way in, when the rough cloth of his cloak brushes up against the man beneath him, and all those seconds are agony. There’s nothing on the bed but him and Kylo, so he bites down on his own forearm to keep from making a sound. Kylo never pauses, not giving ’87 a chance to acclimate to this new feeling, just keeps thrusting in and out of him. He sets a moderate, steady pace, never once deviating from it.

It doesn’t get better; he never gets used to it, it just rips through him again and again. He squeezes his eyes shut against the tears, and he keeps his teeth embedded in his flesh. The sick squelch of Kylo entering him fills the room, and ’87 almost wishes he could scream just to drown it out. Kylo never makes a sound, the only evidence that this had any effect on him at all, was the tightening of gloved hands on ‘87’s hips.

When it’s over, Kylo pulls out too fast; ’87 allows himself a whimper against the nigh unbearable pain, but only the one. When he looks up next, the knight is seated once more on the floor next to the bed, his legs crossed and his head is bowed in meditation, effectively leaving ’87 alone. He tries to gingerly roll over, but he’s shaking and his muscles have turned to jelly, causing him to flop gracelessly onto his side. The pain in his backside flares up again and he has to stifle a yelp. All he wants to do is leave, but he can’t move, his body not able to respond to commands. So he lies there for a long time, staring at the familiar walls of the of the room, they were identical to the ones in his. Everything was the same, even though the base was a planet, uniformity was something the Order cherished above no other.

Eventually he hefts himself up, but it’s a while after that before he can walk without leaning against the wall. There’s blood; there’s blood on the mattress, and on Kylo, and staining ‘87’s white teeth, and it’s still pooling in the bite wound on his arm. He covers it all with his armor, slowly and carefully piecing it on, not wanting to call attention to himself or stick out in any way. He limps back to the barracks, his unit is gone thankfully, so he takes his time in the sonic, hoping to cleanse the everything away.

He missed the training academy, he missed being planet side. The base had this persistent hum, and if you laid your hand on any surface, you could feel it vibrate slightly. On terra, there was this quietude and stillness that he loved but didn’t really appreciate until now. He missed having friends, when the stuff they were training for seemed so far away that it barely crossed their minds. He’s so lonely now. Though he never understood what happened; Phasma was cruel to everybody, in every situation, in every aspect of her life. ‘87 was one of the unlucky few who held her attention, so he experienced even more of it. That wasn’t a reason to resent somebody, to be cold towards them. He buries his face in his hands as he started to sob.

Three days later, his soul mark appears. Two faded black lines that twist twice around each other in a helix, they take up the width of his inner left wrist, and is the length of his index finger. ’87 spends hours looking at it, he knows it’s Kylo’s doing, though he doesn’t know how. The idea that he could make the mark appear on skin that did not belong to him is mind boggling. What’s more mind boggling is the fact that somewhere, someone is waiting for him, looking for him, and now they’d be able to find him. He keeps it hidden of course, with a crude, flesh colored wrapping that he doesn’t call attention to. He’s probably the only Stormtrooper in the galaxy with a soul-mark.

The meetings continue, but after that first time, Kylo orders ’87 to keep his helmet off, even when the only thing Kylo does is sit and stare at him. Kylo never takes his helmet off, in fact, ’87 has not seen even an inch of his skin. He never looked back during the sex, but Kylo never removed any clothing, just exposed the important bits. It’s better that way, he didn’t want to see whatever was lurking beneath all those layers.

 

* * *

 

 

Han lets him go. Gives him his blessing and his blaster like he understands why Finn wants to be on the other side of the galaxy. But then the planet is attacked, and they take Rey, _he_ takes Rey, and Finn runs after her like she wasn’t in the arms of his worst nightmare. He has to help her, because he likes her and because he wouldn’t wish Kylo Ren on anybody, let alone his friend.

“They took her, they took Rey!”

Han ignores his cries and grips ‘87’s arm tight, pulling him to a transporter that’s just landed. A lot of people file out but he and Han wait there until a small woman appears, kind, but fierce looking, dressed in clothes similar to her companions but something about her says she’s more important. Her and Han lock eyes for a moment and Finn can tell he’s intruding upon something.

Han pulls him forward, “this is Finn, he defected from the Order. He’s got the map to Luke.”

Leia turns to the young man, “Finn, that was incredibly brave of you.”

“Thank you General,” he says honestly.

He’s heard of General Leia Organa, everyone in the Order has.

The pair keep him within arm’s length all the way back to the base, but whisper to each other so he can’t hear what their talking about. It’s him for some reason.

When the plans for Starkiller base are brought up Finn sees his chance to save Rey, and embellishes on his skill set in order to be included in the mission. The general and Han agree, but pull him into a relatively private corner in the scant minutes they have before takeoff.

“May I see it?” She asks politely.

Finn pushes up his sleeves and shows her. She covers her mouth with her hand and her eyes go wide, even though she knew what she would find, the sight of it causes something to grow in her, something like hope.

“Do you know what this means?”

He nods, looking at his feet, “yes ma’am.”

 

* * *

 

 

He knew it was going to be one of those sessions because Kylo was seated on the edge of the bed and not the floor. ’87 strips and goes to stand between the knight’s legs. Kylo runs his hands over the lines of ‘87’s ribs, and waist, and hips, and over the inside of his thighs and over his backside.

“This is for me. I’m tired of giving everything to the order, you’re mine.” He mutters.

’87 never pays any mind to these ramblings, parsing them for orders and throwing out the rest. He’s pushed onto the bed and he assumes his usual position on his hands and knees.

But something’s different.

The bed is made, he realizes. With black sheets, and a grey cover, and two fluffy white pillows. It’s so odd, all the times he’s been here, nothing had ever changed. He wonders if Kylo stays here now, but for some reason he’s having a hard time imagining the knight doing anything like sleep.

He’s shocked out of his thoughts when a bare hand slides around his waist and covers over his cock. Kylo’s never touched him there before, and he’s never removed his gloves. He knows what he’s doing, his hand is slick and it does this twisting motion that causes ’87 to stiffen a little. Then he takes the troopers own hand and wraps it around his cock, guiding his movements with his own over the top.

’87 keeps stroking himself even after the other hand leaves, it wouldn’t do to play dumb. He wishes Kylo would just hurry up, so he could leave, he didn’t want to play whatever game this was.

He feels hands parting his flesh and exposing his entrance, and braces himself for penetration, but it doesn’t come, instead the broad stripe of a tongue lands there and startles a gasp from him. Kylo keeps doing it, keeps licking him there, until he focuses his attentions and runs the appendage over the very rim, before diving in. it feels odd at first and uncomfortable, before he takes deep breaths and forces himself to relax, then it shoots pleasure through his body, and he ends up having to press his face down into the pillow. Kylo thrusts and hooks and undulates in ’87 until his thighs are shivering, then he takes ‘87’s forgotten cock in hand and starts stroking. Every breath he takes is a whimper.

He hates this; hates that Kylo is doing this now, hates that he never did it before, hates that he’s responding to it.

Kylo finally removes his face from ‘87’s ass, and ’87 feels the bed shift behind him. Two large hands spread his knees until his hips are almost flush to the bed, then Kylo enters him slowly. It’s good, better than it’s ever been because he’s loose from pleasure. When Kylo starts to move, it’s slow, like an afterthought, and he spends most of the time completely buried in ’87, seemingly unwilling to leave. When he starts to speed up, the pace goes from almost nothing, to hard and fast immediately. Kylo is leaning over ’87, bracketing his smaller body completely, the back beneath him his arched down with his ass up, and his face buried in a pillow.

The pillow doesn’t do much, the noises ’87 let out are obscene. He’s screaming and sobbing, all things he’s wanted to do before, but he never let himself. ’87 knew about pain, it was no stranger to him; it sharpened his senses and gave him focus. Pleasure was new, pleasure was like a fog and he couldn’t see anything through it. It made him oblivious and insensible to decorum, it left him vulnerable, even around monsters.

Kylo lowers himself so his chest is flush with ‘87’s back and buries his face in the side of his neck. He feels soft lips and wet breath, but he barely registers a mask less Kylo Ren. This new angle didn’t allow for the cock to go in as deep, but it caused this spot to be rubbed every time Kylo thrust down into him.

He can’t breathe all of a sudden, and has to lift his head out of the pillow. His eyes are rolled back, and his mouth is locked wide open, and he’s tense all over gripping everything tightly; it was too much, another second of this and he’s going to pass out. Kylo slows and softens his movements until ’87 relaxes; he lets out a huff of air and flops back down on the pillow, thankful for the break.

Then he makes the terrible mistake of opening his eyes.

The first piece of flesh he ever sees of Kylo’s, is his inner left wrist. It’s facing down and half turned away from him, but he sees it anyway, the black helix. The same one that appeared on his own wrist months ago. Everything stops for a moment as his inhibited mind tries to process what he sees. Then Kylo starts moving again, and his eyes fall closed, and his mouth open, and his cock is trapped between his belly and the bed with not enough friction. Kylo ruts into him mercilessly, causing the bed and the room to tremble violently, then grunts in his ear as he tenses and spills into him.

’87 moans when he feels it, moans when Kylo slips out, and moans when the knight licks his way from behind ‘87’s sack, to the dip at the base of his back and comes, twitching against the bed sheets.

 

He doesn’t open his eyes until he hears the fresher doors close, then he dresses himself hastily and runs from the room; literally runs.

He tries to scrub the mark off, but it stays put. He thought this liaison was nothing, that Kylo would get tired of him eventually, but this mark tied him to the creature forever, so did his uniform, so did his whole life. So he decided to go get a new one.

 

* * *

 

 

Leia runs her thumb over the mark once more before returning to Finn his arm, “thank you,” she says.

Finn just shrugs. ”How do you know about….” He trails off.

“He’s our son,” Han admits.

“He’s human?” Finn blurts out in surprise. He supposed it was possible, he just never expected it, Kylo was always so other.

“Haven’t you seen him?” Leia asks.

Finn shakes his head, “only his mark, once.”

Leia bows her head and blinks back tears, then looks up into Finn’s face again. “His name is Ben. He was always strong, but he was also a soft boy.” She chuckle’s and shakes her head, “I don’t know where he got that from. He used to love to climb, and play dress up with my gowns. He hates the sight of blood, he has a predilection for sweet things, and he thinks C3P0 is hilarious. He can see something only once, and remember it for the rest of his life. That’s your soulmate, and he’s still in there, I promise.”

She doesn’t expect him to believe her, the pull between soulmates were strong, to make him run away…she can only imagine what was done to him. But Finn is so good, if Ben had any light left in him, any at all, Finn would find it.

 

“Bring our sons home” she tells Han, as he’s about to enter the Millennium Falcon.

He embraces her one last time, then turns to leave.


	2. A Ship Within a Ship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He tries to calculate his chances of escaping now, with a knight of Ren constantly watching him, in a ship within a ship, tethered by a man with control over at least a third of the Galaxy. He’ll be lucky if he sees the stars again.

Rey stumbles off of the Falcon once it lands on D’Qar, Chewie tries to help her but she struggles away from him deliriously. Not knowing where she wants to go, just trying to get someplace where there’s no pain.

She mumbles the same thing over again: “he took him. He killed Han and he took him!”

She has to be sedated in order to be treated.

There is an older woman waiting by her side when she awakes, Rey knows who she is, and they just look at each other for a moment. They’ve never met one another but they know that they’re about to become a permanent fixture in each other’s lives.

“How are you feeling?” Leia asks.

Rey just shakes her head in response.

“The healers tell me you’re okay now. I want to thank you for what you’ve done, Finn told me it was you who saved bb-8.”

When Rey doesn’t respond, Leia reaches over and places a hand over her arm, “can you tell me what happened?”

“He took me on Takodana, he knew I’d seen the map, but when he tried to take it…something stopped him.”

“He never got it?”

“No.”

Leia visibly relaxes, “please, go on.”

“I escaped. Finn, Han and Chewie found me, and we went to go set the charges but, he was there. He killed Han.”

She wants to ask if they spoke to one another, if Kylo listened before striking his father down. Instead she says, “and then?”

“And then I failed.”

 

* * *

 

Rey comes to in the snow, to a pain in her back and a terrible wailing. She follows the sound to Kylo Ren, who’s on his knees and draped over Finn’s still form. It fills her belly with rage and contempt, and she steels his attention when she calls Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber to her hands.

“What did you do to him,” she screams.

It seems as if he’d forgotten about her, because when he looks up his face pinches in annoyance; but he leaves Finn’s side anyway and ignites his own weapon.

“He is mine to do with which I please,” he declares.

He goes after her harshly, each time he swings his lightsaber against hers it feels like being hit by a speeder. It forces her to stumble and dodge his attacks instead of meeting them head on, it robs her of any opportunity to hit back.

“The force is strong in you, but you’ve no place here.”

His words remind her of that power she tapped into before, and she does it again. And when they meet again the difference is astounding. They lock sabers, and Rey finds it in herself to stare into Kylo’s anguished, glassy eyes.

“I know why you hurt him. You’re a greedy and cruel man.”

Kylo’s visage twists in anger and his attacks come more quickly; less learned and more desperate.

Had circumstances been different, Rey could have walked away triumphant. But Kylo hurts Finn to gain strength, and right now Finn lies in the snow mauled. All it takes is one vulnerable moment and the hand which is holding her lightsaber is cut from her arm.

She screams and falls to the ground clutching the stump to her chest, scrambling back and away from the knight, even though she knows it’s of no use; Kylo walking towards her now looks a lot like death. Then the ground splits open between them; Kylo looks as if he considers jumping over before thinking better of it. Rey can only watch helpless as he drapes Finn’s body over his shoulder, stuffs the blue lightsaber into the man’s jacket pocket, and walks away from her.

She stays there until Chewie finds her and drags her back to the Falcon.

 

* * *

 

 

“He came back for me and I left him with that monster,” Rey says, uncaring that its mother was sitting beside her.

“We’ll get him back,” Leia says.

“How?”

“I don’t know, but we will.”

Rey opens and closes her new right hand, testing the functionality.

“The falcon used to be able to do that,” Leia tells her, “hopefully everything will be fixed by the time you leave.”

“Leave to go where?”

“We need Luke, and you need to be trained; you must go to him,” Leia says, then closes her eyes for a moment and breathes deeply, “I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this; we were supposed to be better, smarter. And we saw what was happening! But the New Republic was so scared of becoming like the Old Empire that it allowed another to form within my lifetime. If that is not failure I don’t know what is.”

“If I can offer you some advice dear: stand for what’s right, but always, always, stand against evil,” she gives Rey a small smile, “and get better soon.”

Leia leaves Rey to heal and goes back to work; she hopes Rey succeeds where she hasn’t. She thinks about Finn and Han, and how she had them both safe in her hands only to feed them to her son. Ben’s return to the light was not worth anyone’s life. She could just hope that wherever Finn was, he was okay, and could hold out until they have a chance to rescue him. Whenever that would be.

 

~*~

 

When Finn first opens his eyes, it’s only for a few seconds then he’s pulled back under. It happens again and again, until he loses his patience and claws his way to consciousness. It takes hours, maybe days.

The very first thought in his head is that he’s awake, the second is that there’s something lodged in his mouth, keeping it open, but when he tries to reach up and take it out, he finds he cannot move his arm, or his other arm. He can’t sit up, he can’t turn his head, he can’t command anything but the features on his face. He screams, but all that really comes out are muffled and hoarse whimpers; his head is filled with static, it’s all he hears and it’s all he sees as he struggles against his invisible bonds.

Finn panics until he can’t, until it’s all drained out of him and there’s nothing left to do but think. Lying supine on a hard slab, he can’t see much of the room he’s in, it’s dimly lit and the ceiling is too high to make out any detail. He’s alone, he can feel it, and help isn’t coming if it hadn’t already.

He focuses on his right hand even though he can’t see it, focuses on his fingers, trying to force them to move and is flooded with relief when one of them responds. It’s not much, and if it takes all that effort to move one finger there is a long road ahead of him, but it becomes a bit easier after that.

He doesn’t regain full use of his body but it’s enough for now. The thing in his mouth snakes down into his throat and further still as he soon finds out, eyes widening in horror as he pulls and pulls and pulls until the long tube is free from his body, gagging and gasping for breath afterward.

His first attempt at standing fails, sending him to the floor. He stays down, leaning back against the slab he woke on; it’s a smooth, glossy stone that comes up just under his hip, and black like the rest of the cavernous room. It and the machine that his tube was connected to were the only things in here with him; looking down at his all white attire, so easily visibly, Finn begins to feel as if he was meant to be on display.

He can’t think of what this place is, or why he might be here, or what’s happening. That is until he sees his mark. Then he remembers Kylo, and running away, and Rey, and Solo falling, and the battle in the snow. He remembers fiery pain, then blackness. He lost, and Rey was probably dead, and whatever this place was, it was of Kylo.

Finn stands, fueled by fear, and takes slow shaky steps that get stronger with each one. It’s a ship, he realizes after he leaves the room, and it’s dark. He wanders in random directions trying to find a cockpit or landing bay, but the only beacon of light in all the darkness comes in the form of a lowly lit room, the only room he’s come across with an open entry way. It’s large but sparsely furnished; the biggest thing is the grand four poster bed, he finds himself being called to it, even though someone clearly meant for him to find this room and it could very well be a trap.

He is so weak, weaker than he’s ever been, too weak to accomplish any sort of escape from this odd prison. His earlier excursion has his knees shaking with overexertion and though he just woke up, he collapses onto the bed and into another slumber.

 

 

He’s not alone. There’s a knight sitting on the floor with their head bowed, it’s not his knight, this is one he’s never seen before. Next to the bed is a little trolley with food and a pitcher of water, he pours himself a glass.

“you are awake,” a synthesized voice says.

Finn looks back over to the knight and sees them standing now, mask pointed in his direction. They’re quite tall, tall enough that it’s the first thing one notices even though they stand slightly hunched over. Their robes are all black, and simpler than Kylo’s many layers, consisting only of a tunic and a loose pair of pants, with strips of fabric wrapped around the waist, ankle and wrists.

“Where is Kylo?” He asks, hoarsely.

“Close, always, he wanted me to tell you that.” The knight starts circling around the bed, inspecting Finn from all angles.

Finn wonders if the knight knows that it was meant as a threat and not a reassurance. He suspects they do, as this was his jailor.

“Close to where? What is this place?”

“It is a ship within a ship, within my master’s fleet.”

“Kylo has a fleet now?” he says unimpressed.

“As all emperors should.”

Finn spits out his water, “emperor! Emperor of what?”

“Of truth in the Galaxy. He is not the only one, he reigns with that pale general and the shiny warrior. He will kill them soon, of that I am certain.”

“Snoke?”

“Dead by our hand,” the knight says proudly.

He never knew much of Snoke, but he’s been at the mercy of Kylo, Hux and Phasma many times; he knew enough to know things could have only gotten worse.

Finn just gapes, “how long have I been asleep?”

“At least a month.” The knight walks tentatively closer, “it is such an odd thing to see you move when I have only seen you still. Will you tell me your name? My master never speaks it.”

“That’s because he doesn’t know it. I’m Finn.”

“I am Bai Ren, and I am here to protect you, Finn.”

“Don’t lie to me,” he says, leaning back against the headboard, “there’s no reason to. You’re here to keep me here.”

“That too.  We must hold on to the things that are precious to us.”

“You think I’m precious?”

“My master does.”

Finn lets out a little breath of amusement, “you’ve got it wrong Bai Ren.”

“When you were asleep, he kneeled by your body, and prayed over you for hours.”

“You don’t know what he was praying for.”

“Then you do not know my master.”

Finn refocuses on his water and Bai watches him.

He tries to calculate his chances of escaping now, with a knight of Ren constantly watching him, in a ship within a ship, tethered by a man with control over at least a third of the Galaxy. He’ll be lucky if he sees the stars again.

 

 

He has a lot of time on his hands as prisoner, he spends it learning, and with Bai. He learns languages and skills, mostly in theory but with the hope that when the time comes for him to use it, he’ll have some idea of what he’s doing. As for Bai, the knight seems genuinely pleasant when it comes to Finn, and even though he knows they’ve probably done terrible things, he can’t help but be pleasant right back. It also doesn’t help that they’re the only two people staying aboard the ship, forcing them to use each other for any form of social interaction. Until Kylo himself visits.

 

“My traitor has arisen, thank the force.”

Finn’s head pops up from where it was bent over his data-pad. Kylo marches into the room where Finn has been staying for the last few days. He’s wearing the same rough black robes from when he wasn’t an Emperor of the Galaxy, and he’s barefaced.

It had been such a shock when Kylo obeyed his father’s command and taken off his mask, so easily as if its sole purpose wasn’t to hide his face. He never thought he’d see it again, but here it was, just as young and soft as it was that day and just as disconcerting. The Kylo in his mind was a looming shadow, twice his height and armed with glowing red claws. This Kylo has sad eyes.

He pushes his way between Finn’s legs and covers his body with his own, seeking out every bit of exposed skin desperately, running his hands over it, nuzzling his face into him, biting him sometimes. It hurts, but Finn can’t tell whether it’s because Kylo is being especially rough with him, or if the sad, weak state of his body simply can’t take this sort of attention. He is forced to inhale that sick smell of ash and death that Kylo carries around with him always.

Kylo lifts Finn’s white tunic and presses his face into his stomach, settling there for a while.

“Speak to me, I want to hear your voice.”

Finn can’t believe what he’s just heard, he could probably count on one hand the times he’s said anything to Kylo other than ‘yes, sir’, he’s never been made to talk. So he frowns, until the hands on his hips tighten dangerously.

“I need to hear your voice,” Kylo says tightly, “don’t make your first sounds to me be those of pain.”

“I don’t have anything to say.”

Kylo hums into his stomach, pleased.

“What were you reading before I came in?”

“I’m trying to learn droidspeak.”

“Why?”

“It seems like a thing people know, I want to know those things too.”

Kylo motions for him to continue.

“I want to learn how to pilot, it seems like everyone but stormtroopers can pilot.”

Kylo snorts at his naiveté.

“And I guess I’m not a stormtrooper anymore.”

He goes quiet again. He stopped being a stormtrooper the minute he deserted the Order, and now he’s back but as what?

Kylo’s eyes narrow, but he lies his head back onto Finn’s stomach and stares at his wrist.

“Many things have happened in your time spent sleeping. Snoke had to die; he was wise and powerful but never powerful enough. He would have burned half the Galaxy just to rule over the other; he’d have burned it all.”

He runs his thumb over Finn’s mark in contemplation.

“So we are Emperors now; it is not so great a thing actually, but…the choices I am being given are becoming harder and harder. Oh and the resistance is dead, along with Skywalker.”

Finn’s heart drops, even though it comes as no surprise. There was no stopping the order, their organization, their methods, and their resources made that impossible. But the rebellion would stand as long as General Organa did, which meant she had followed Han and Poe and Rey into death; she who still believed there was goodness to be found in her son.

 

 ~*~

 

Kylo takes Finn to a training room that he’s somehow missed on his many excursion around the ship. It doesn’t have any of the complex devices and accoutrements they were provided in the Order; instead it was just a large room with open space and mats covering the floor.

Kylo tosses him a staff made of a durable organic material, and uses his own in an impressive flurry of intricate moves.

“Bai Ren told me you wished to spar,” Kylo says.

 _With Bai!_ Finn screams to himself.

Why would he have any interest in sparring with Kylo? Furthermore, Kylo was fully robed, mask included, while Finn was wearing the medical robes he woke up in, having decided they were more agreeable than what was provided for him and requested ten additional pairs.

Finn watches Kylo continue to show off and tries to think of a way out of this.

“I’m actually quite tired,” he says.

In a quick move, Kylo sweeps his legs out from under him, sprawling him on the floor. The breath is knocked out of his chest so he maybe stays down for a bit and is slow to his feet, but he never makes it fully because Kylo smacks him back down.

“Get up.”

Finn goes to obey, quicker this time, but is knocked down all the same.

“Get up,” Kylo repeats.

Getting the idea now, Finn uses his staff to block Kylo’s next attack and counters to give him enough time to make it to his feet.

They clash again; Finn is able to avoid some of Kylo’s swings, but he is simply too weak to block any direct hits and is sent to the floor once more. This time Kylo doesn’t wait for him to try and rise, and starts raining blows on him immediately.

It pisses him off, Kylo’s apparent ease with hurting him, turning his apathy and reluctance into rage fueled attacks. It pisses him off even further that this is exactly what Kylo wanted. Even so, he lasts all of five minutes, before laid to waste on the cushioned floor.

The worst of it is probably his broken rib, the rest are cuts and bruises, though the one above his eyebrow is bleeding profusely.

Kylo stands over him, eclipsing the light in the room. “We’ll continue when I return,” he tells him.

Translation: heal thyself.

Bai is waiting for him in his rooms when he finally crawls his way back, he doesn’t know if there are any med supplies there but he figures it’s a good place to start.

“He ordered me not to help you,” Bai says.

“That sounds about right.”

He can’t help but think that if Bai had not told Kylo what he said, none of this would have happened. Then his keeper hands him a little med-kit, an enormous gesture that Finn greatly appreciates.

“How was the training session?” Bai inquires.

“I don’t know if beating me up with a stick counts as training,” Finn grumbles.

He peels off his sticky tunic slowly to get better access to his rib.

Bai sits on the floor in front of his chair, and gazes up at him.

“Anything can be training. When I was a child, my punishment for misbehaving was having sun spice poured in my mouth. I was a bad child and I incurred many punishments; eventually my entire mouth was destroyed and I found I could not taste a thing. I can drink bantha spit right now, it wouldn’t make any difference.”

Finn lets out a reluctant smile at the silly story, failing to hold on to his sour mood.

Then Bai continues.

“When I was a slave, I harvested Hlyl eggs, these disgusting little things, more expensive than chromium. For us it meant reaching into the nest of their vicious wellspring, whose venom made it feel as if your body had been set ablaze from the inside, and gently stealing them. Because if you cracked it, the chip in your head would explode, if you gathered too little, the chip in your head would explode, if you allowed the Hlyl to bite you too many times, your heart would stop.”

Finn doesn’t see Bai move, but suddenly the knight is holding a bacta bandage from the kit.

“And so now I have the fastest hands in the Galaxy.”

“So I should be thankful?” Finn sneers.

“No. Pain is abundant and free to give, never thank anyone for it. My master learned from his master that the strong stand tall where the weak fail. You and I know life is crueler than that, but how will you emerge? Numb, or greater?”

“I will be greater,” he answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is. Raise your hand if you had to go back and re-read the last chapter because you completely forgot what it was about.
> 
> I actually posted a version of this a month ago and then promptly deleted it, so I apologize to anyone who caught that.
> 
> I also want to thank everyone who commented/gave kudos and kept commenting/giving kudos months after this was last updated and most people abandoned hope, you definitely motivated me and kept me motivated. 
> 
> Please, please tell me what you think.  
> If there's something in here that you want to see more of I'd love to know, same thing goes for elements you think didn't work. I am just so open to critique


	3. Are You Finn?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We’re not going to be like them, we’re going to be better. I promise.”  
> Then he pushes Finn down back beneath the surface.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a little shorter and contains explicit material.
> 
> Also I changed the title, I hated the other title, it was cheesy but I didn't 100% know the direction this was going to go in

>  

“Why anyone would want to converse with that which does not, nor has ever lived is beyond me,” Bai says, watching Finn Fuss over his data-pad from where they are sprawled on the desk.

“But you understand droidspeak,” Finn accuses.

“I never sought out to. All it is, is binary and binary arithmetic.”

“My language program says it’s incredibly hard for organics to interpret.”

“Then destroy this program and allow me to teach you instead.”

“You’d teach me yourself?”

“Of course I would, why not?”

Finn smiles at that.

“You must be very bored here with me.”

“Bored?” the knight says, and cocks their head in confusion.

“I bet Kylo has the other knights doing way more interesting things, teaching me droidspeak isn’t bringing order to the Galaxy.”

“I do not serve the Galaxy; I serve my master. Only his most trustworthy of followers even know of your existence, and only the most powerful of those would be given the task to which I am appointed now. This is the highest of honors, I assure you.”

“Yeah, but it’s still boring.”

Bai lets out a weird chortling sound through their mask, which Finn eventually recognizes as a sound of amusement.

“What’s so funny about that?” he says.

“I came up with all of these fantastical ideas of what you would be like; I asked myself, who is the person my master would hold onto so tightly? And I was so wrong.”

He wonders if Bai’s figured out that he and Kylo are soulmates, or if they have any idea about the true nature of their relationship.

“How long have you known Kylo?”

“Since the beginning I suppose; I was a knight before he, when he killed my former master to become Kylo Ren.”

“That didn’t bother you what he did?”

“If she was weak enough to be killed, she should have been killed, that’s the way things were.”

“That’s why you killed Snoke.”

“On the contrary, when I agreed to help my master I was sure we were going to fail. Snoke was far beyond us all.”

Finn shakes his head, “what has he done to inspire such loyalty to him?”

“My master is as fair and just as the winds on Panaav; as cleansing as fire in a forest. I am loyal to him because his reasons are as pure as a child’s. His optimism is beautiful to me.”

Finn was under the impression that no one liked Kylo. Stormtroopers certainly didn’t care for him, and he’d overheard enough horror stories from officers to know that they didn’t either. So surely the knights of Ren were loyal to Kylo as stormtroopers were loyal to Phasma, or how officers were loyal to Hux, in a detached sort of forced way. But Bai wasn’t loyal to Kylo out of a sense of duty, rather, they were loyal to him because they liked him. How odd.

“Well you’re certainly not like any knight I ever imagined, you don’t even carry a weapon.”

“I do not need one.”

“Can you use the force?”

“No.”

“So you can defeat your enemies barehanded?”

Bai gives him a little shrug, “yes.”

“Kylo is such a fool, wasting you like this.”

“He is not a fool; he is the furthest thing from a fool!”

“He’s compromised.”

“How can an Emperor be compromised? His word is law,” Bai says, as if they were personally offended.

“He’s a compromised fool,” Finn teases.

“I will not hear this.”

 

~*~

 

Kylo comes to him during his sleep cycle, which isn’t so odd a thing, sometimes he’ll wake up to the sound of muttering coming from his bedside. But this time he’s woken up by fingertips running up his thighs; it’s Kylo of course, and he’s naked.

Finn tries to move away but Kylo catches his hips and slides him back. “I don’t…”

Kylo shushes him, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Finn thinks sometimes Kylo hurts him without even knowing it, but it’s just to make himself feel better. So he takes a deep breath and makes himself relax, letting Kylo strip him down.

“I have known no pleasure since our last time together, my light,” he says as he works two slick fingers into Finn. “I could not stand the thought of it; not when you were away, not even when you were here asleep and I knew you were safe.”

Finn grunts softly in discomfort at the alien feeling, moving in and out of him. Kylo straddles one of his legs and starts rubbing himself against it; he’s already so hard, was probably hard by the time he walked into the room.

“I’m going to eat you out again,” Kylo intones lowly, “you like that I remember. I remember the sound you made when I stuck my tongue in you.”

Kylo’s voice is so deep Finn feels it more than he hears it. It travels into him through Kylo’s fingers and it dispels some of the discomfort and replaces it with pleasure. If someone held a blaster to Finn’s head, and told him to name one thing he liked about Kylo, he would say the sound of his natural voice didn’t conjure feelings of fear and dread quite like everything else about the man.

Kylo brings Finn’s left wrist up to his lips and mouths at the mark. The skin there is sensitive to his tongue and breath, and then Kylo moves his fingers just right to pull Finn’s first gasp of pleasure from him. It takes Kylo by surprise because he seizes up, and his eyes go unfocused, and he comes all over Finn’s thigh.

Kylo gasps, “your pleasure is my pleasure; your pain my pain.”

His fingers start to move faster and harder in him, sharper in him, and Finn starts to squirm around them. When Finn’s back starts to arch, Kylo flips him onto his belly and buries his face into Finn’s hair, breathing in deeply, and then into his neck.

Kylo’s always been too big, but when it’s good like this, it gives him this feeling of fullness that outweighs the pain. He slides in slowly, sometimes stopping to adjust and whimpering the entire time. When he’s all the way in, Kylo holds Finn tightly and sobs into ear.

Finn feels as if he’s missed something. And then he doesn’t care because Kylo starts rocking in him, but he doesn’t pull out at first, just rocks his hips slowly, teasingly almost but nicer. Fondly maybe is the word.

Kylo chants in his ear, most of which he can’t understand, but he says things like too much, and too long. Then he pulls out, and pushes back in slowly, then a little faster, then a little faster again, and then he keeps that pace. Not slow but not enough; maddening but good. It builds Finn up and makes his body desperate for something he never wanted in the first place.

Finn can’t come like this, but he keeps getting closer and closer until he realizes that he can. He jerks under Kylo and lets out little gasps that turn into full blown moans.

“Yes,” Kylo pants softly in his ear, “yes, please.”

Finn shakes his head in defiance, cries ‘no’ over and over again until he releases between the bed and his stomach. Kylo bites down on the flesh of shoulder and shudders above him as he slows to a stop.

He pulls out, and works his way down Finn’s back with his mouth, licking and sucking until he finds his opening, then he lazily starts swirling his tongue inside of him.

Finn shouts and writhes at the sensation; he’s too sensitive and it’s too much but Kylo just holds his hips down and doesn’t stop. Eventually, Finn melts into an unresponsive, drooling puddle; he thinks he may have come again but he isn’t sure.

He passes out promptly when Kylo finally stops.

 

 

Kylo is still there when Finn wakes up, standing over a cart of food, wearing only a pair of black pants that are unclasped in the front. Finn watches him stuff his face with sweet fruit pastries for a while.

“Come and eat,” Kylo says between bites, “you need to gain your weight back.”

“I need to use the fresher,” he says and starts to shuffle out of bed.

He wants to get the sticky feeling of Kylo off of him, but he stops his efforts when a bun comes floating towards him. He stares at it in awe before giddily picking it out of the air and turning it over as if to see if it was in any way changed by the spectacle. He’s heard about the force, and rumors about the incredible things it could do, but he’s never seen it used to obviously and never thought it would be used for something so simple like to pass someone food.

Finn eats even though he’s not particularly hungry, the bun is already in his hands and it happens to be his favorite. It’s just a plain bun but it’s more flavorful than he’s used to; in fact, when he first arrived he couldn’t eat most of the things given to him. It seemed someone noticed and fixed it so that only understated foods were prepared for him.

Kylo disappears into the fresher for a while as Finn keeps nibbling on his food. When he returns, he walks over to Finn and scoops him up in his arms, and carries him back into the fresher. In it, there’s a basin big enough to fit a person that’s currently filled with water and Finn is at a lost as to why anyone would need so much. That is until Kylo starts to lower him in.

“Wait!” Finn cries when he realizes what’s happening.

Kylo ignores him and places him into the steaming water. Finn is beyond confused, tensed and startled at the foreign sensation of being immersed in water.

“Hold your breath,” he says from his low seat next to the basin.

Finn gives Kylo a hurt look before closing his eyes tight and obeying. Then he feels a hand atop his head, push him gently into the water until he was fully submerged. Finn panics immediately, and the hand lets him up. He shoots up sputtering and running his hands over his face, wiping the water out of his eyes. The second he catches his breath, the hand returns.

“It’s just water, one more time.”

Kylo pushes him down again, but this time Finn forces himself to relax, and he manages to stay under for a few seconds before the hand lets him up. Kylo reaches for one of the bottles held in a little basket by the basin, and lathers its contents into Finn’s hair. It’s not a torture session as he originally thought, it’s a cleansing ritual, except sitting down in water instead of standing under a sonic. When he looked at it like that, it was actually quite pleasant, being surrounded by bone seeping warmth, if not a bit inefficient, as he was basically sitting in his own filth. Then he realizes that the water is actually soapy, though it didn’t hurt when it got in his eyes like the First Order soap he used all his life.

“I’m not upset at you, for the things you’ve done. You don’t know any better. You don’t know what this thing is that we share and why would you? Who would have told you?” Kylo asks, then grabs Finn’s chin and forces them to lock eyes. “We are one, indistinguishable to the force; to be apart is a perversion.”

“I knew that but I admit I didn’t care. Then I remembered Han Solo and his many failings; how he and his soulmate Calrissian abandoned each other again and again for favor of credits and other such frivolities. How Hux had his mark for many years before it was removed, and yet he claims he cannot remember what it looked like. We’re not going to be like them, we’re going to be better. I promise.”

Then he pushes Finn down back beneath the surface.

 

Finn thinks about what Kylo said, even though he tries not to. He thinks about it when they’re training. He’s come to realize that Kylo “teaches” him by making him learn, as in sweeping his feet out from under him until he learns to stand strong. Only sometimes will he fix Finn’s stance or demonstrate something for him. Finn thinks it’s a stupid approach, why waste time trying to make him see something on his own when Kylo could just show him? His Emperor explains to him that lessons learned through experiences imprint themselves in your body; he makes sure to keep his elbow high because Kylo broke his nose that one time. In any case, the extra time and physicality this method employs have made Finn stronger, and these sessions a little more two sided.

He’s stronger. And when he discards his tattered, bloody shirt, and twirls his staff in preparation, he catches Kylo admiring him heatedly. The idea that Kylo finds him attractive is astounding, it just seems so base and human. Sure Kylo fucks him but that’s because he can, and maybe he thinks he should; but for Kylo to see something in him besides his mark? Astounding. It makes him think about what Kylo said and about the fact of what they are. Is Kylo attracted to him because they’re soulmates or is he Kylo’s soulmate because of that attraction?

Finn doesn’t necessarily want him to die and it’s not just because they share a mark, Finn doesn’t give a shit about that. But the mark is there for a reason, Kylo found him without ever seeing it, and that reason, whatever it is, makes him feel something? for Kylo. He feels betrayed he thinks, and you need to expect something in order to feel betrayed. So what if Kylo was right and they did belong together no matter what? But he tries not to think about it.

 

 

He makes his way back to his rooms alone, the only one there to greet him is the service droid that brings him things from outside the ship. Finn tried to follow him one day, only to be ambushed by Bai. The droid sets out stacks of folded laundry and replaces them with the dirty articles.

“Thanks mate,” Finn says as he pours himself some water.

The droid turns around and observes him for a moment, then lets out a series of beeps. Finn has been studying Binary hard but most droids are still too fast for him to interpret. He did recognize one thing though, his name.

“What did you say?”

But the droid doesn’t respond and starts to leave the room.

“Wait! Did you say Finn?”

He wants to go after the droid but Bai Ren slides into his room, “what happened?” They ask, concerned.

“Nothing,” he says.

He figures it really is nothing because the droid shows up at least once between each of his sleep cycles but it never says anything to him, and he writes off that experience as a standard greeting or response. It just struck him as odd that it used his name when Bai was the only person he told it to, and so few knew of his existence. Even so he takes special care to improve his conversational Binary just in case something like this happens again.

Then, one day the droid wheels in his daily trolley of food while he happens to be alone in his room. It turns to him and beeps something out to him once more, and this time he understands.

_Are you Finn?_

“Yeah that’s me. Why?” he says.

The droid turns on its holo projector and displays the last visage in the Galaxy he expected to see.

“Poe! Poe Dameron! You’re dead!” he says to it, even though it was no more than a recording.

The image was poor but the face was unmistakable and Finn stares intently at it as he begins speaking.

“Finn, _zzzchz_ …hope this… _zzzchz_ …you. We can’t… _zzzchz_ …to you… _zzzchz_ …ship! You need… _zzzchzz_ …planetside… _zzzchz_ …to get planetside!”

“To get planetside, I need to get planetside,” Finn repeats.

“We’re come-… _zzzchz_ …you, buddy.”

The Holo-vid ends there.

“Oh Force. Play it again, please,” Finn begs.

The droid seems to shutdown, then there’re a few sparks and pops, and smoke starts coming from its inner chamber.

He knows what he heard. Poe Dameron was alive and he said ‘we’ which means the resistance was alive and for some reason they were looking for him. There were people in this Galaxy who cared about him, he didn’t have to do this alone; he had help from his friends. He just needed to get planetside but how the hell was he going to do that?

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update! Within the same month! A nine day update!!  
> please tell me what you think.


End file.
